200 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



ise to give some relief. It is likely, however, that it will be 

 very difficult to ever develop in America an adequate system 

 of apprenticeship to supply the trades with skilled journeymen. 



In America more than in most countries, manufacturing 

 industries have been specialized. I mean that in the produc- 

 tion of the finished product many individual workmen have 

 taken part, one devoting himself entirely to one small part of 

 the finished product and another devoting himself to another 

 part. I wasi reading only recently that in the manufacture of 

 a shoe there were some forty distinct processes in the most 

 highly specialized factories, and that in the making of a shoe 

 40 individual workmen gave their attention to it, each perform- 

 ing a small part. This tendency, which perhaps will never be 

 overcome because of its economy, has had much to do with the 

 retarding of the development of skilled workmen. It has a 

 very peculiar effect, I think, as you can readily s^e, upon the 

 workman himself. The individual, who year in and year out, 

 devotes himself to the production of one little part of a finished 

 product becomes in time a mere machine in the doing of that 

 thing and if in the transformation that is going on, that par- 

 ticular part which he does should be turned over to a real 

 machine, he has become so much of a machine that it is very 

 difficult for him to adapt himself to any other kind of work. 

 Being an unskilled man, other than the skill that he has in 

 that one little narrow field of work, handicaps him in making 

 a living when he happens to be thrown out of employment. 



Child labor, that has been so profitable in many of the great 

 manufacturing industries of this country, is another reason 

 why we need some sort of real vocational training. There is 

 no more abject sight than a full-grown man working at a boy's 

 job. Child labor has a tendency to stunt the individual so that 

 when he arrives at the years, and the stature of manhood he is 

 unfit for anything but a child's job. 



These are just a few of the reasons why there exists in 

 America today the need of some sort of training that will equip 

 boys and girls with a vocation. The need is not limited to 

 America by any means. European countries have felt this need 

 and have been trying to respond to it for years. It need not 

 be said to an audience of this sort that mere intellectual train- 

 ing will not give the equipment that is needed. It need not be 



